Assumptions are dangerous things.
Groups like The Mountain Brothers just have to keep on doing what they're doing - just make it dope and just make it different. And not try to compete with other people of color.
I'm not trying to disrespect anybody by saying this - I'm not sure I feel any interaction with Asian America in any collective sense. - It's like, when you're telling me this right now, my reaction is, Really? Asian America knows about me?
I just always considered myself to be different and able to explore whatever I wanted.
So I think it's better to say something than not to say anything at all, even to an ignorant person.
For me, I'm just trying to be the best at what I do. I'll wave an Asian American flag if I get that opportunity. I'm not hiding or trying to discredit my background or anything, I just haven't had the opportunity.
I grew up around hip-hop so I didn't think it was about being cool or being black or being white or whatever.
And yet I understood the alienation of being around others who couldn't really see you or chose not to. I'd felt the self-loathing that came with being a fraud, protraying an image of what you wished you could be but weren't. I'd lived with the fear that people you loved might turn away from you if they ever got to know the true person hidden inside.
Imagine settling for a life you can have because you don't have the courage to go after the life you really want.
Slowly, slowly, catch the monkey.
I know this president. And I can tell you that he cares deeply about the next generation of young women in this country - his daughters, and everyone's daughters. President Obama had the courage to stand with Sandra Fluke. Without hesitation, he defended her right to tell her story.